Building gas reserves: Ukraine
Naftogaz starts pumping up stock piles
Cash-strapped Ukrainian state energy company Naftogaz has started pumping gas into underground storage reservoirs ahead of schedule, a senior company official said today.
Accumulated reserves in storage helped Ukraine withstand a two and a half week cut-off of Russian imports earlier this year which severely affected recipients of Russian gas throughout Europe.
"This is already going ahead. The process has started ahead of schedule," Ihor Didenko, Naftogaz's deputy chief, told Reuters.
"Only a small amount has been sent so far, but it all started the day before yesterday."
In February, Didenko said Naftogaz needed about $4.8 billion to build up sufficient reserves in storage.
Naftogaz pumped in about 17 billion cubic metres of gas - the largest amount in more than five years.
The government has said it intends to provide state credits for Naftogaz to enable it to build up reserves and asked the central bank to extend credits at the hryvnia currency's lower official rate of exchange to pay for Russian supplies.
According to press reports, Naftogaz has debts totalling about 34 billion hyrvinas ($4.5 billion) and must make repayments of about 25 billion hryvnias this year.
Parliament, however, has twice refused to place on its agenda a plan to ensure Naftogaz's finances - one of several measures required by the International Monetary Fund to restore the flow of credits to Kiev.
Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said yesterday those measures had been approved by government resolution - although it is uncertain if that procedure is legally correct.
Ukraine has agreed to buy 33 Bcm of gas from Russia against last year's 50 Bcm in view of decreased economic activity linked to the global financial crisis.
It imported 2.5 Bcm in the first three months of the year compared with contracted volumes of 5 Bcm.